November 11, 2012
South Africa to put image of former president Nelson Mandela on its currency, the rand, only the second person so honored.
Anti-apartheid hero and Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela, a national hero, will appear on all new South African bank notes. This 200-rand bill is worth about $23.
November 11, 2012
South Africa to put image of former president Nelson Mandela on its currency, the rand, only the second person so honored.
Anti-apartheid hero and Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela, a national hero, will appear on all new South African bank notes. This 200-rand bill is worth about $23.
Mandela is only the second individual to be featured on South African bank notes. The first was Jan van Riebeeck, a 17th-century Dutch administrator.
New banknotes bearing the image of former South African president Nelson Mandela went into circulation in the country Tuesday
“This is our way to pay tribute to him,” Gill Marcus, the Reserve Bank governor, told South Africa’s Press Association.
Mandela “does represent something special, not only in South Africa,” she added. “He is really an extraordinary human being."
The anti-apartheid icon adorns the front of the rand notes, while the “Big Five” of Africa’s most admired wild animals — the lion, buffalo, elephant, rhino and leopard — will grace the back.
Mandela, 94, is said to be happy about the honor.
“He is delighted, very excited about it. We did show him the designs, the drafts and everything else," Marcus said.
Mandela, who served 27 years in prison, until 1990, for fighting the apartheid regime, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
One year later, he became the nation’s first democratically elected president, though he stepped down after just one term.
"It is fitting that South Africans should be reminded of the former president's legacy and his guiding principles as they save, invest and spend their money,” Tim Harris, the shadow minister of finance, told the Telegraph.
The new rand notes, in denominations of 10, 20, 50, 100 and 200, will be used with the existing bills as legal tender. A 10-rand note is worth about $1.15 in U.S. currency.
Mandela is only the second individual to be featured on South African bank notes.
Jan van Riebeeck, the first Dutch administrator of Cape Town and a member of the Dutch East India Company in the 17th century, was the first.
Courtesy: NYDN
